Suggested iced sidewalks
Dyed with ashes

Smell of newspaper
Smoke
Sprinkled with water

The chimney said failure
The window mumbled loss
Every smoke alarm
Screamed pitch pipe woe

The rhubarb    However
Said sugar
Said red
Said juice     All the way
To my dry silent lips

–John McKernan

“This small book would make any subway ride a treat for 270 days until you start over.[…] as W.C. Williams said in “Asphodel That Greeny Flower” (paraphrased) it has all the news that people die miserably everyday for the lack of what is found there.”

-Grace Cavalieri,
Washington Independant Review of Books

John McKernan is now a retired comma herder. He lives—mostly—in West Virginia, where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is of selected poems, Resurrection of the Dust.